


Outside the Living

by Fearthefuzzybear



Category: Original Work
Genre: Flashbacks, Ghosts, and i just might, bug me enough for another chapter, ghost - Freeform, like everlost, one child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-04-07 20:58:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19093006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fearthefuzzybear/pseuds/Fearthefuzzybear
Summary: He doesn't remember when it started.





	1. Awake

He doesn’t know when it started. He only knows that one day, he noticed that the world just seemed to look… deader. 

 

He was sure it had to do with the emptiness inside of him, but he couldn't be certain. 

  
Everything around him became drab; nothing but dull grays and browns, save for the occasional odd bright shape where the green of the grass or the black of the street or the bright varied colors of the wildflowers jumped out at him through the dullness.

  
Sometimes, when he looked at a building, he saw another, more colorful, more _alive_ structure wavering through the gray outline of what had been there for as long as he could remember. When he researched these places, his findings told him that there had been other buildings there, years before. 

 

He found himself drawn to this place, this  _ dimension _ , this realm for the old and forgotten. He felt he belonged here. 

 

Sometimes, he saw shops where he knew empty lots lay vacant. He saw people, too. He had always been able to see the dead, but these people now looked so much more  _ real _ than they had before, more real than those that crowded him in the hallways of his workplace. There was a heaviness to their steps, a sluggishness to their movements, like something was dragging them down. They only ever stopped on the colored spots.

 

Nobody else ever saw them, so he knew they were spirits. He kept them a secret, like he kept the secret of his other abilities. They were but roaming ghosts, traveling to who knows where. 

 

He had no urge to follow them. 

 

He saw someone die once. 

  
They’d dragged her from a flaming car wreck. She was choking, red hair  charred and smoking. They’d tried all they could, and he knew it was hopeless when she slowly came into color, with her pale pallor and glassy eyes. Her still chest nauseated him, and a new spot bloomed a vibrant red beneath her, staining his vision scarlet for hours after. 

 

Her last breath haunted his dreams.

  
He noticed that each day as he walked around the block, it got harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other. He couldn’t stop, though. His feet sank halfway through the ground whenever he tried. His kind neighbors always tried to ask if he was okay, but he never answered.

 

They stopped after a month.

  
He stopped being able to touch physical objects without having to think about it. He had to concentrate, or his only connection to reality-the real reality-would slip through his grasp. It didn’t always work, though.   
  


One day he awoke to find his bed the color of the sky.

 

It was rather unexpected, but he couldn’t say it was entirely unwelcome. Life had rejected him, and he was all too ready to divorce her. Not even a corpse tied him to her realm.  There was nothing for him there.

 

The emptiness inside him only grew.

 

The hours went on. The hours became days. The days became weeks.

 

He never left.

 

He didn’t know why. 

 

After a month, someone broke down his door in the dead of night. People flooded through the old brick entrance, grabbing anything of value they could find. Furniture, silverware, electronic gadgets,  _ anything _ .

 

He couldn’t bring himself to care.

 

The house was cleared out in a little under an hour, leaving him with nothing but the house and the floor and the bed.  _ His _ bed. The one splash of color in his colorless abode. 

 

He didn’t know why they didn’t take it, but he found himself relieved.

 

Another month, and the house was renovated. They tore down everything.  _ Everything _ . Gone were the matte pastel wallpapers, gone was the old hardwood floor. Gone was every aspect of his old home. He felt…

 

_ Violated. _

 

He felt angry, he felt vulnerable, he felt like he had been assaulted. He didn’t know why, but then again… maybe he did. 

 

His house was all over the news the following night.

 

(“ _ Hi, I’m Molly Chester, and I am currently standing in front of what might be Pleasant’s first real supernatural phenomenon. Early yesterday morning, a renovation crew went inside the house to fix it up, but this morning, the woke up to find that the house was exactly the way they found it yesterday. I am joined here today by the house’s current owner, Gary Williams. Gary, what do you have to say about all this?”) _

 

_ (“Well Molly, I sent in my crew yesterday, and they told me they’d taken down most of a couple of walls, and ripped up a bunch of the old flooring. I even checked it myself, but this morning, I went in to snap a few ‘during’ pictures and the house was just as I’d seen it the day before, peeling wallpaper and everything. There was even some kind of old furniture in there that wasn’t there before. Now, I trust my crew, this is just freaky.” ) _

 

_ (“And Gary, how did you react to this phenomenon?”) _

 

_ (“Why, I called in the cops, of course. A couple of teenagers were passin’ by and told me that a really reclusive dude used to live there. He disappeared a few years ago and nobody knows where he went.”) _

 

_ (“Do you have any theories?”) _

 

_ (“After listening to those kids? Ghost. I’m selling that house as fast as I can. I don’t want to mess with any supernatural nonsense, I will tell you that much.”) _

 

_ (“Thanks, Gary. We’ll be back at ten with more news about this strange occurrence.”) _


	2. Entrance

 

The walls became thicker and outside quieter. The brick beneath the drywall swelled and bulged until it felt like everything from the outside was shut off. It was only him, alone in his house. His house. His empty house, void of all things that once brought him joy. 

 

He no longer was troubled by the walls. He simply walked through them. 

 

He never worried about light. He could see quite well in the dark.

 

He never once bothered to look out the grimy dust-covered windows at the people who periodically stopped to peer in. 

 

He never paid attention to anything.

 

Years went by. He became nothing but an old legend. Sometimes someone would try to sneak in through the window, muttering something about stupid bets. Aside from them, he was always alone.

 

It was a rainy day. Barely any sunlight filtered through the thick filth layered over the windows, rays highlighting every tiny particle that floated through the air. The soft pattering of the rain on the roof was the only sound to color the cold damp air. He was curled up in the old attic, reveling in the soothing noise. His silent heart vibrated with the rhythm of the downfall, filling him in a way he hadn't been filled in a long time. 

 

So why was there still such an emptiness in his chest?

 

He felt the door open and shut again immediately. The door hadn't been opened in such a long time that he felt the breach in his incorporeal bones. Peace broken, he fell through the floor to see his new guest. A child dressed in dirty rags was panting with their back pressed against the door. Heavy hands pounded against it, but the door held firm. The child whimpered softly as they strained to hold the door shut. After a while, their assailants backed off. 

 

The child sank to the floor in relief. 

 

He watched as the youngling stood and brushed themselves off, dirt clods and chunks clattering to the ground. The layer and layers the child was wearing nearly disguised their malnourished condition, their ribs showed even though the thick cloth. 

 

They couldn’t have been older than eleven. 

 

He watched as they explored his house, watched as they opened every cabinet, watched as they peeked through every door. 

 

It was almost endearing.

 

As the child discovered the small kitchen/dining area, he settled himself into one of the three wooden chairs sitting around the dining table. He usually didn’t express this much interest in anyone. It was odd. He knew he should just ignore the child, shoo them out if necessary. He knew that if the thugs returned that they would most likely bring things. Damaging things. Things that would hurt him and his house. 

 

The child screamed. 

 

He nearly knocked over the chair he was “sitting” in. He turned around to see the child, recoiling from the open refrigerator. Inside, he could see bottles of milk, fruits, vegetables, eggs, and meats. He honestly could not understand what was to fear about such mundane food.

 

Then he saw how  _ red _ the apple was.

 

He was suddenly back on the street, watching her die. She stared at him with her glassy gray eyes. Her chest rattled. Her oozing red hands reached out for him and grabbed him by the collar. She dragged him close to her. 

 

_ “You knew.” _

 

She gripped him tighter, and her other hand ran a long sharp fingernail down his cheek, leaving a trail of scarlet he couldn’t see. 

 

_ “You knew.” _

 

He couldn’t speak. He never could, in these nightmares. Her shuddering form pulled him closer, he could feel the heat radiating from her burned lips as they whispered in his ear.

 

_ “You knew I was dying. You knew who I was. You knew there was no saving me. You knew why I was so scared. You knew what lay after. You knew me. You knew us. You knew YOURSELF.” _

 

She inhaled one last time and hissed all her charred flesh-smelling breath into forcing her last words through her blackened bloodstained teeth.

 

_ “Why didn’t you leave?” _

 

And all of a sudden he was back in reality. His house was shaking, but there was no earthquake. The child was curled up under the table he had been sitting at, sobbing. The fridge was still open, and the colorful food stared cheerfully at him. He shook his head. 

 

She was gone.

 

He distanced himself from her for a reason. He was getting all too close to himself. He turned to make his way back up to the attic.

 

The minutes trickled by too slowly. The night fell rapidly, and the downpour had strengthened. Thunder roared. The windows rattled. The wind howled around the house, and he listened. The cacophonous noise shrieked and wailed, the tortured voices lamenting their woes. He reveled in the sound. It surrounded him, cradled him, comforted him. 

His eyelids slid downward, and all was quiet.

The morning woke him in a cold bleak attic room, fog seeping through the broken window behind him. His perch was soaking, though it didn’t bother him too much. Soft bits of fluffy green mosses and lichen decorated the beams, and they thrived in the damp environment. Out of habit, he slid down one of the central support beams, landing lightly on the floor when he got close enough. 

The trapdoor was open.

It wasn’t the first time it had been left open. His various visitors always left in one state or another. Open, closed. They all came up here eventually. His only sacred place was the rafters, because though they might tramp around in his lower levels, the beams would always remain undisturbed. He stepped softly down the attic stairs, only to hear excited little footsteps running around his halls. 

The child was running all up and down his hallways, dashing this way and that, tattered clothes fluttering behind him. They stopped only once, to look out a dirty window. They rubbed away the worst of it and tiptoed on their tiny little feet, long matted hair trailing behind them. They squealed excitedly and jabbered away in foreign words. They bounced a few times in front of the grimy glass before dashing outside, slamming the door shut behind them.

Dust fell from the old moth-eaten curtains.

Curiosity gripped him, in a way he hadn’t felt in such a long time that he felt like he  _ had _ to look. Outside, he could see nothing but the usual dim grays and blacks, with the occasional muted browns. The fog obscured everything he could usually make out, but the child alone stood out in the empty static, their quickly-receding rags blurring and fading before disappearing altogether. 

He was alone again.

He flew up to the attic, ignoring the dull throb in his chest. He sat in the dim gray light, counting the fronds on the little mossy hills that sprouted there. It was a bright, lively green, he knew, though to him it looked more like a muted dark green, blending in with the rest of his dim, colorless world. He fondled it, his finger passing through and through again, and he could almost get a sense for how  _ soft _ it was. 

It moved.

It wasn’t much, but the little leaf of moss bent beneath his touch before springing right back up again, cheerful as ever. He took no notice of this, but the wind shifted slightly, ruffling his hair and nearly knocking him off. 

Time was but an illusion to him. 

 

The fridge door slammed itself shut.

**Author's Note:**

> please bug me about chapters. i wont remember otherwise


End file.
